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ATHENS, Ohio — All that ailed Purdue Sunday at Nebraska and so much of what's held it back at times this season, it all was forgotten for one night at least, and without Matt Haarms no less, as the Boilermakers visited Ohio University and routed the Bobcats 69-51.

A breakdown of Purdue's first road win of the season.

Tired legs be damned.

On a short turnaround from Nebraska, Purdue played fast, played with energy and dominated at both ends of the floor to open the game in Ohio's Mackey Arena-inspired Convocations Center.

And, Purdue made all the shots it's so often missed this season, as it's endured inconsistent shooting, bottoming out Sunday with a 6-of-35 three-point showing in Lincoln.

Purdue was 6-of-12 from long range in the first half, after which it led by 20, 37-17. It forced Ohio into a slew of turnovers, and ran off them and rebounds alike, generating transition threes and making 'em. The Boilermakers scored 19 "fast-break" points for the game to Ohio's two.

"We want to get in transition," said Eric Hunter, who notched some of his career-high 18 points in transition. "We want to get transition threes, layups, dunks. We stressed getting stops, getting that first rebound and being able to get out and run."

The running game complemented well Trevion Williams' interior presence, as the big man served as a de facto go-to guy for Purdue, to start the game, and when it needed plays made in the second half in the face of an Ohio run that cut a 20-point deficit to just six in roughly four minutes.

It was then that Purdue responded with a 9-2 burst, stabilizing itself as Ohio rained threes.

During that stretch, Williams re-entered the game with three fouls and Purdue immediately went to its big man. On consecutive possessions, he scored in the post between a collection of Bobcats, then posted up and passed out to Hunter for one of his four threes.

"You like him in those isos on the block," Painter said of Williams, who scored 14 points.

Once Purdue had weathered Ohio's run, it salted the game away with its guards attacking off the dribble and running offense through Nojel Eastern In the post.

Back in the starting five to replace Haarms, Eastern scored five of his team's seven points during a span of about three minutes and finished with 11.

"He's a winner," Painter said. "You take him out of the starting lineup and he's not going to hang his head."

With under five minutes to play, Purdue generated a turnover and ran, again, and Eastern put an exclamation point on the Boilermaker win with a Jordan Logo-ish slam barreling down the lane.

"Oh my god," Hunter said. "I didn't know he was going to jump from the (MAC) logo."

Eastern's struggled to score this season, not unlike his team as a whole, at times.

Tuesday, all was well in Purdue's offensive world.

It shot 49 percent for the game, 55 in the second half, after a first half in which threes and transition carried it to a seemingly insurmountable lead.

Simply, Purdue was very good at both ends of the floor and teams almost always look really good when they make threes and generate layups and dunks, as the Boilermakers did at Ohio.

But, there's more to it than that.

Purdue played with a distinct energy, too, and its guards — coming off a lackluster game at Nebraska in many senses — brought it against the Bobcats.

Defensively, Purdue was very good despite being without arguably its most important piece in Haarms, who remained at the team hotel Tuesday night. He'll be tested again Wednesday in West Lafayette, Painter said, to see if there's any chance of him playing this weekend vs. ranked Butler.

"It's definitely different," Williams said of being Haarms-less. "He brings a lot to our defense, a big piece of it. It was different trying to guard those guys, because you wait on Matt to come block some of those shots.

"It was all about being solid, and we did a pretty good job."

Hunter enjoyed a breakout game offensively, yet he might have been better on defense.

Jason Preston came in averaging about 17 points on 52-percent shooting.

Against Hunter, he finished 2-of-8 with five turnovers.

"The coaches stressed to me that he was the head of the snake," Hunter said, "and if you cut the head off the snake ...

Hunter gestured toward the playing floor, long after the game was over.

"That'll happen."

Sasha Stefanovic didn't score much, but he and Evan Boudreaux were among those who provided easily apparent grit in tracking down loose balls, rebounding and such things.

Jahaad Proctor rebounded from his most forgettable game as a Boilermaker with a couple first-half threes, and a few game-closing scores off the dribble late. He scored 12, with four assists and no turnovers.

Eastern made perhaps his most multi-faceted impact of the season and Williams was the game's most influential player when he was part of the game. Foul trouble was something Purdue couldn't afford tonight, but rendered irrelevant anyway.

It means things weren't as bad as they may have seemed returning from Lincoln, with the Haarms absence being thrown on top of a bad loss, one that was made to look Tuesday night like a lapse in Purdue's focus, respect for its opponent, whatever you want to call it.

This wasn't a Big Ten game, but It was a road win over a respectable mid-major team and an emphatic one at that.

This game seems marked an awakening for Purdue's jump-shooting, a potential turning point for Nojel Eastern and a reminder how good the Boilermakers can look when their effort and defensive focus are sharp. That's the thing: Purdue rolled offensively, but still could have won this game with defense otherwise, and for that to be the case without Haarms, that reflects well on those that made it happen.